Tag Archives: devolution

Last weekend saw a massive mobilization of UKIP supporters for the Stoke Central by-election, with over 200 members turning up on Saturday and another 70 on Sunday to support our party leader and candidate, Paul Nuttall.

I spent two days on the doorsteps with Freddy, Jim and Patricia as a four man canvassing team, talking with local residents and receiving a tremendous reception – I was even greeted with a big sloppy kiss on one occasion, albeit from a very friendly fox terrier!

The Labour campaign team had been around one street before us and what I found left me absolutely incredulous.

Playing the ‘English Card’

Left in the road was a Labour leaflet carrying the image of their candidate, Gareth Snell.

To my immense surprise, the Cross of St George was prominent at the top of the leaflet – did anybody run this past Lady Nugee, Emily Thornberry MP, who openly sneered at the sight of an English flag during a previous election campaign in Essex?

Indeed, I find the whole idea of Labour putting the flag of our country on their leaflets quite ridiculous in view of their disdain for our national identity as shown in their policy.

English Patriot will be featuring posts from guest writers in the New Year offering a different perspective on world and domestic events. Here is the first of our guest writers, John Planter, with his take on the current state of UK Politics…………………

Inspired by an excellent original article by American Judge Anna von Reitz observing events in America.

Acknowledgement to where some of her words have been shamelessly borrowed

You can see why Parliament acts as it does. From their perspective they are a permanent ruling class London club with members that change now and again.

It is the rest of the country, us, you and me, the serfs who are responsible – we are the cause and the solution to the Parliament problem. It is us, we have forgotten who we are and what our powers are and what powers we delegated to Parliament and how we can also take back any power delegated to them. This also applies to the councils, and the Monarch – the Monarch represents people who represent Monarch.

In January I re-posted from the Wonko’s World blog details of the author’s request to the Cabinet Office to see notes from the meetings concerning the 1997 Devolution Act under Freedom of Information .(See Below)

A number of us sent in an FOI request as suggested and last week an answer was received – As we all got pretty much the same answer, I have once again copied from the blog and that answer can be seen below.

One thing that did strike me as being very interesting is the part just above the link to a section of Hansard, the record of debate in the house. In it, the FOI team refer to ‘devolution to Scotland and Wales and the English Regions – Not England, but the English Regions!

Part of EU policy is to break England in to nine regions as our country is ‘integrated’ in to the European Union – Does this part of the letter hint at that policy, and is this why release of this information has been suppressed twice before and this FOI request has been also been rejected?

In January I put in a Freedom of Information Request to the Cabinet Office asking for a copy of the minutes and Terms of Reference of the 1997 cabinet meetings on devolution that resulted in Scotland and Wales getting devolved national governments and an agreement that England would be dismembered along EU regional lines with huge glorified county councils begging for scraps under the table.

These minutes have been requested more than once and on every occasion they have been refused. The Information Commissioner has ruled against the Cabinet Office withholding the minutes and been overruled. The Information Commissioner has been to court and obtained a court order instructing the Cabinet Office to release the minutes and it has been vetoed by the Home Secretary. Twice, by Home Secretary’s of different parties. Clearly these minutes are a smoking gun and we have a right to see what’s in them.

Here is the response from the Cabinet Office:

Dear Mr Parr,

Ref: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST

I refer to your request where you asked: “Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting a copy of the minutes of the 1997 Cabinet meetings on devolution. I am also requesting a copy of the Terms of Reference for the cabinet committee headed by Lord Irvine that the minutes relate to and any legal or departmental advice provided to the cabinet in relation to these meetings.”

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is held by the Cabinet Office.Some of the information you have requested is exempt under section 21(1) of the Freedom of Information Act. Section 21 exempts information if this information is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means. Section 21 is an absolute exemption and the Cabinet Office is not required to consider whether the public interest favours disclosure of this information.

The remainder of the information you seek is exempt under section 35(1)(a) and (b) of the Freedom of Information Act. This is a qualified exemption and therefore subject to the public interest test. The information is exempt under section 35(1)(a) and (b), which relates to the formulation or development of government policy, and Ministerial communications. We accept that there is public interest in improving public understanding of the development of Government policy on devolution and the way Cabinet Government operates more generally. We recognise that the decisions Ministers make have a significant impact on the lives of citizens and there is a public interest in this process being transparent. We also recognise that greater transparency makes government more accountable to the electorate and increases trust.

However, there is a countervailing public interest in protecting the constitutional convention of Cabinet collective decision-making. Ministers will reach collective decisions more effectively if they are able to debate questions of policy freely and in confidence. The maintenance of this convention is fundamental to the continued effectiveness of Cabinet government, and its continued existence is therefore manifestly in the public interest.

In relation to the specific documents you have requested, the policy discussions in this area are ongoing and the adverse effect of disclosing these documents now would not be diminished by the fact that the documents date from 1997. The matters discussed at Cabinet are not matters of purely historic interest, but are important matters of current discussion and debate. We therefore conclude that the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

Once again I have to ask: what have these traitors got to hide?

I am of course appealing to the Information Commissioner and I would ask that anyone else who joined me in requesting the minutes also appeals. We can’t allow these people to continue to hide behind a veil of secrecy when the very existence of our nation is in their hands and negotiations with the Scottish separatists are being conducted in our name.

Re-posted from the ‘Wonkos World’ Blog….

How you can help to get cabinet devolution minutes released

The SNP have asked the British government for the minutes of the 1997 cabinet meeting on devolution in which it was decided that the Scots and Welsh would be allowed self government whilst England would not.

This important document has been requested a number of times under the Freedom of Information Act and blocked every time. The Information Commissioner has ruled that release of the minutes is in the public interest and ordered their release but they were blocked by the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve.

What are these traitors so desperate to hide?

Vetoing FOI requests requires the unanimous agreement of the cabinet. When Jack Straw and Dominic Grieve vetoed their release in 2009 and 2012, these people conspired to keep the minutes secret:

Jack Straw

Dominic Grieve

The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP

The Rt Hon. David Cameron MP

The Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP

The Rt Hon. Nick Clegg MP

The Rt Hon The Lord Mandelson PC

The Rt Hon. William Hague MP

The Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP

The Rt Hon. George Osborne MP

The Rt Hon David Miliband MP

The Rt Hon. Kenneth Clarke QC MP

The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP

The Rt Hon. Theresa May MP

The Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP

The Rt Hon. Dr Liam Fox MP

The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP

The Rt Hon. Philip Hammond MP

The Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP

The Rt Hon. Dr Vince Cable MP

The Rt Hon John Denham MP

The Rt Hon. Iain Duncan Smith MP

The Rt Hon Ed Balls MP

The Rt Hon. Chris Huhne MP

The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP

The Rt Hon. Edward Davey MP

The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP

The Rt Hon. Andrew Lansley CBE MP

The Rt Hon Shaun Woodward MP

The Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP

The Rt Hon The Baroness Royall of Blaisdon PC

The Rt Hon. Eric Pickles MP

The Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP

The Rt Hon. Philip Hammond MP

The Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP

The Rt Hon. Justine Greening MP

The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP

The Rt Hon. Caroline Spelman MP

The Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP

The Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell MP

The Rt Hon Peter Hain MP

The Rt Hon. Owen Paterson MP

The Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP

The Rt Hon. Danny Alexander MP

The Rt Hon The Lord Adonis MP

The Rt Hon. Michael Moore MP

The Rt Hon Ben Bradshaw MP

The Rt Hon. Cheryl Gillan MP

The Rt Hon Nick Brown MP

The Rt Hon. Jeremy Hunt MP

The Rt Hon The Lord Malloch-Brown KCMG PC

The Rt Hon. David Laws MP

The Rt Hon John Healey MP

The Rt Hon. Danny Alexander MP

The Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP

The Rt Hon. The Lord Strathclyde PC

The Rt Hon The Lord Drayson PC

The Rt Hon. The Baroness Warsi PC

The Rt Hon Jim Knight MP

The Rt Hon. Francis Maude MP

The Rt Hon The Baroness Scotland of Asthal PC QC

The Rt Hon. Oliver Letwin MP

The Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP

The Rt Hon. David Willetts MP

The Rt Hon Rosie Winterton MP

The Rt Hon. Sir George Young Bt MP

The Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP

The Rt Hon. Patrick McLoughlin MP

The Rt Hon. Dominic Grieve QC MP

The minutes are really of more interest to the English than the Scots as they got what they wanted and we got shafted so we shouldn’t be leaving it to the Scots to get these minutes into the public domain. If every English person interested in seeing what decisions were made at the cabinet meeting that have resulted in over 15 years of institutional discrimination against the English made a Freedom of Information request for the minute, it would be extremely damaging to the British government if they tried to block their release to hundreds or thousands of people.

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting a copy of the minutes of the 1997 Cabinet meetings on devolution. I am also requesting a copy of the Terms of Reference for the cabinet committee headed by Lord Irvine that the minutes relate to and any legal or departmental advice provided to the cabinet in relation to these meetings.